Quality Handmade Bicycles

Six-Eleven Bicycle Co.

From a young age bicycles have been enormously important to me, much more so than other childhood playthings. I grew up hearing a romantic narrative from my grandparents about the time they spent touring Europe by bicycle after World War II. With photos, slides and a meticulous travel journal, my grandfather would paint stories of the mountainous terrain and quaint little villages they visited while touring. Though my grandparents are gone, those stories continue to motivate me.

In a valley deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the town of Roanoke, Virginia, has served as a hub of transportation for nearly 150 years. Roanoke got its name and rose to railroading prominence in 1881 when Norfolk & Western, the great rail company of the Southeast, began to use the village of Big Lick, Virginia, as a central hub and exchange point between two rail lines. The Roanoke River became the town’s namesake, and the railroad, the town’s proprietor.